[ahl]

So while most of the software is open source rather than proprietary, you still have a fair point that customers pay for support (as they do with most enterprise products). One could theoretically use the product without first-party software updates, managing the open source oneself... but that would have practical impediments (and runs counter to the all-in-one simplicity that customers value in the Oxide product).

Two points about your last point. First, software improvements benefit all customers; as the business grows, the effective cost per customer shrinks. Also, most customers grow their Oxide deployment or will replace hardware after a depreciation cycle. The sustainability of investments into the software (and the product generally) is on solid ground.

[kijin]

Back in the 90s and 00s, lots of companies churned out software products that were sold once, supported forever. It was a sort of Ponzi scheme, supporting old customers with money from new customers. Which was okay during a period of high growth. But sooner or later the market matures, growth plateaues, and the cost of ongoing maintenance becomes a much bigger problem.

Right now you're growing fast and swimming in VC money, so this is probably not an issue. At some point, though, you might find that even hardware depreciation cycles don't provide as much of a cushion as you hope they will. In an economic downturn, people might suddenly realize that Oxide hardware actually remains serviceable much longer than they expected. :)